A Yemeni sheik, accused of financing terrorism, said Osama bin Laden once considered him a spiritual guide – but the al Qaeda leader later called for his death when the two had an ideological falling out, an FBI agent testified yesterday.

Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad allegedly detailed his rocky relationship with bin Laden to FBI agent Brian Murphy on a plane from Germany to New York, where he is now on trial on charges of funneling funds to al Qaeda and Hamas.

“Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa that called for the death of al-Moayad and other people,” Murphy told jurors in Brooklyn federal court, recounting the November 2003 interview with the sheik.

Al-Moayad said he was marked for execution after he had turned “against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda” because of a difference of opinion over “Islamic democracy,” Murphy said.

“He said he would never give any money to any organization that would kill anybody anywhere,” Murphy testified.

Before the rift, al-Moayad said he had supplied al Qaeda with money and weaponry and “had fought with bin Laden in Afghanistan.

“Bin Laden had called him his sheik or his religious teacher,” the agent said, adding that their relationship continued after the war between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.

Al-Moayad, 56, and his assistant, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, 31, were arrested in January 2003 after a four-day sting operation at a German hotel that authorities had wired for video and sound.

During the operation, two FBI informants allegedly discussed funneling $2.5 million to terrorist groups through al-Moayad.

The two were extradited and flown to New York approximately 10 months later.

The sheik could face more than 60 years behind bars if he is convicted of providing terrorists with millions of dollars – much of it raised through businesses and mosques in Brooklyn.